| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: that the knights' daughters of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and Suffolk
- that is to say, for it cannot be understood any otherwise, the
daughters of all the gentry of the three counties - come hither to
be picked up, is a way of speaking I never before heard any author
have the assurance to make use of in print.
The assembly he justly commends for the bright appearance of the
beauties; but with a sting in the tail of this compliment, where he
says they seldom end without some considerable match or intrigue;
and yet he owns that during the fair these assemblies are held
every night. Now that these fine ladies go intriguing every night,
and that too after the comedy is done, which is after the fair and
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: the bank of the Angara, obliged to conceal their position,
lighted no fires. They suffered cruelly from the low tem-
perature. A few feet below them, the ice in large masses
drifted down the current. All day these masses had been
seen passing rapidly between the two banks.
This had been considered by the Grand Duke and his
officers as fortunate. Should the channel of the Angara
continue to be thus obstructed, the passage must be im-
practicable. The Tartars could use neither rafts nor boats.
As to their crossing the river on the ice, that was not pos-
sible. The newly-frozen plain could not bear the weight of
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